Case Study - Business-IT Alignment Enables Louis Vuitton to Harness the Value of Technology
- Date: 29 June, 2015
Client: Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton
Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), a world leader in high-quality products, possesses a unique portfolio of over 60 prestigious global brands and is active in five different sectors: wines and spirits, fashion and leather goods, perfumes and cosmetics, watches and jewelry, and selective retailing (Sephora, Starboards Cruise Services and Bon Marché).
Situation: Urgent Need to Equip IT Professionals beyond Technical Skills
IT is vital for organizations looking for ways to improve business results. Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH) recognized that their IT professionals needed the knowledge and skills to share information and best practices across the five sectors or "maisons" that each of the LMVH brands represent. The luxury brand's goal was to align their IT departments.
The LVMH central CIO Group performed a wide-scale audit and determined that there were significant gaps in business skills such as communications, change management, teamwork, IT strategy and project management - all the skills required for IT leaders to keep up with the changing expectations of business stakeholders.
In order to remain competitive, the company created a new IT competency model and job descriptions that embraced more soft skills, business skills and IT best practices. As a result, the company needed a learning partner to create a completely customized, business-school caliber program to help employees develop the newly identified skills and competencies in IT.
Solution: Creation of the LVMH IT Academy
Global Knowledge was selected to develop the LVMH IT Academy to serve hundreds of employees across multiple sectors. The academy consisted of four, three-day modules covering a variety of soft skills, business and IT best practice topics such as:
- Communications
- Business and IT strategy
- Change management
- Customer service orientation
- Portfolio, program and project management
- IT governance
- Enterprise architecture
- Teamwork and effectiveness
The completely customized program was built around core Global Knowledge models and content, leading-edge research in fields such as business strategy and included guest speakers from the University College of London, one of the top-ranked universities in the world.
Results: IT Academy Builds Momentum Globally
Chief information officers, chief technology officers, business demand managers, and other IT leaders from across the LVMH global organization participated in the IT Academy. Specifically:
- Over 120 participants from over 25 LVMH brands at sites across Europe including Paris, Madrid and Rome.
- One-hundred percent of participants "strongly agreed" or "agreed" that they would recommend the IT Academy to their colleagues and that it will help them be more effective in their jobs.
- LVMH continues to invest in the IT Academy with new cohorts beginning yearly
Ultimately, the academy enabled participants to collaborate with their peers based at LVMH offices worldwide. IT employees were able to share best practices that were later adopted by multiple "maisons" to save costs and improve efficiency.
